


The mask

by imsfire



Series: Cassian week 2018 prompts [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Back-story, Disguise, Feels, Gen, Introspection, Pre-Canon, Undercover Work, gritting one's teeth and getting on with the job, self-disgust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 12:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15412698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: Cassian prepares for a role undercover.





	The mask

**Author's Note:**

> For day two of Cassian Appreciation Week on tumblr: theme, Mask.

It wasn’t a job he enjoyed, but he’d known that for a long time.  At some point, he knew, there’d come a stage when the knowledge of how much he hated doing this slipped below the surface and became unconscious.  Should he look forward to it, for the marginal relief it would bring? – or should he dread it because the mask would be one step nearer becoming reality when that day came?  It might happen; it might be very soon. 

But not today.  Today he could still feel it, the revulsion of this job; his mind both resistant and resigned to that resistance, accepting its duty.  Laying out the necessary items in the ‘fresher Cassian could feel the tension starting to knot inside him; a snake coiling into his shoulders, biting at his jaw.

Razor, clippers, tweezers.  A row of little bottles and sachets.  A small box of plastene bubble-strips, a single blue iris in each one.

Behind him in the bunk, the neat grey uniform was laid out on his bed.  He hoped it was a good fit this time. 

That was another thing he wanted never to get used to, the feel of that fine synth-weave on his skin.  Dry and unnatural, the fibres harsh to the touch no matter how often laundered. 

The enemy’s face and the enemy’s clothes.  Because he had to become them.

He looked at his own face and inhaled.  Watched his nostrils flare marginally, a tiny crease appear between his brows.  Watched, and then deliberately commanded those muscles to relax.  Watched again, as his face became a blank.  Time to start work. 

From this moment on, until he was either home safe, or dead, he could not allow himself the luxury of a sigh or a frown, a single micro-expression, that was not part of the soul of Joreth Sward.

He opened the first bottle, the small vial adjacent to it, and emptied the contents of the one into the other; shook them for the required thirty seconds and set the mixture down to begin curing.  Took up the clippers.  Carefully and steadily he trimmed his hair back to a hard straight cut, a sharp line at the nape of the neck, his fringe and crown cropped to the regulation two centimetres.  Sheared his beard and moustache down, to fuzz, to stubble, to nothing. 

An ugly, naked face with thin lips and a cold jawline stared back at him from the mirror. 

He opened the container of lightener and began to work it into what hair was left him.  Carefully, making sure every strand was covered.  For the eight days this mission was scheduled to last, he had to be perfect, not a single miscoloured strand.

He set the last spoonful of the colourant aside and took up first the razor, to scour his face completely smooth, and then the tweezers.  He plucked his eyebrows into a severe line and smeared a little of the dye on them; the last remaining drops would go on two compresses to bleach his lashes, in ten minutes.  He checked his chrono again to be sure of the timing.  Stood looking at his reflection again with pursed lips.

Lt Sward was an ambitious junior officer from Mantooine, a by-the-book hawk, intolerant of minor errors and inefficiencies, acutely conscious of his lowly origins and how far he had already been privileged to climb.  He would have worked for years to lose his native accent.  Cassian had extensive training to draw upon but it did no harm to practice.

“Good afternoon,” he murmured, leaning in towards the glass.  _Hmm._ No.  Too obsequious, too humble.  Sward would not sound soft.

He straightened and threw back his shoulders, put his chin up.  Better.  Spoke loud and crisp in the silence. “Good afternoon, Admiral Grendreef.  Admiral Veers, Sir, how may I be of assistance?”  Drawing out the vowels, flattening o’s and blunting i’s. “Grand Admiral Thrawn, may I say what an honour it is to serve under you, Sir.”  Thrawn, a long drawled syllable.  _Throoorn_.  Sir, short and clipped, the final r almost non-existant; _suh_.  Honour said _onna_ , not onor.  Throrn, suh, onna.

There was very little chance he’d meet the infamous Chiss, of course, but it was best to be able to pronounce everyone’s name correctly.  Grendreef, Veers, Piett, Thrawn.  Tarkin.  Vader.

_Mute your eyes, empty your face of all expression, your voice of everything save obedience.  You are nothing now but the faithful tool of the Empire.  The bringer of order.  Joreth Sward, son of loyal citizens Neeta and Bali Sward of Manuta City._

_The son of Jeron Andor and Mariana Casal is not here now.  The mask is so thick, even the memory of him cannot show through._

_Eight days, only eight days._

He checked the time again and applied the lash-pads.  Stood with eyes closed against the acrid chemicals; listening to his breathing, feeling the conscious discipline of each muscle grow stronger.  Feeling his posture lock in, his limbs settle into the permanent slight tension of a man always on guard, always on the verge of saluting a senior officer or striking a failure.

_I can do it.  I’ve done it before._

The bleeper on his chrono, _teep-teep, teep-teep_ ; he removed the pads carefully, keeping his eyes shut.  Climbed into the ‘fresher, already on the hot water setting, rinsed the dye from his hair and face, washed every last trace away.  Came out, rubbing himself dry roughly with an ancient piece of towelling, and returned to the glass to insert the opaque contacts.  Top quality work; must have come in from the new supply line via Bothawui.  They barely inhibited his peripheral vision at all. 

Joreth Sward, chestnut-haired and blue-eyed, an empty-faced lover of rules, looked out of the mirror at him.  Good.  It was done.  Eight days, just eight days to get through.

Cassian put on the uniform.  Underclothes, undershirt, shirt, pants, jacket, socks in sock-suspenders, glossy-waxed boots, cap. 

Lt Sward went through to the flight deck, to join the droid on duty as they came out of hyperspace and prepared to rendezvous with Admiral Grendreef’s ship.


End file.
